Project Golden Frog - Species Information

The Legend of the Golden Frog

Pre-Colombian indigenous peoples of the distant past considered the frog as revered. They crafted gold and clay talismans in a variety of forms (frogs, people, jaguar) known to contemporary Panamanians as huacas/huacos. Caches of buried huacas are sought and unearthed by fervid amateur archeologists called "huaqueros" and are sold at exorbitant prices to collectors of antiquities. Replicas are commonlyfound in jewelry stores in Panama. The frog huaca (above) is used as a symbolic component of the project's logo and represents fertility, a fitting theme to the Project Golden Frog (PGF) conservation endeavor. Local legend holds that chieftains of the Guaymí tribe would ascend the Pacific slope to the mountains of Gaital, Pajita, and Caracoral (in El Valle de Antón) annually as a sacred rite. This legend evolved into the myth that the Golden Frog would transform into gold huacas upon death. Hence, anyone seeing or possessing the frog alive would have good fortune (buena suerte) visited upon them.

Photo by Guido Sterkendries

A National Symbol

Although known by all Panamanians, few have ever seen these living frogs and little is understood about its life history. Through its folklore and fame, the frog has become a national symbol of nature unique to Panama. Everything from t-shirts to lottery tickets sport the frog.

Panamanian Lottery Ticket

Emmett R. Dunn, an early 20th century herpetologist, described the animals as a subspecies of Atelopus varius found in the mid-montane rainforests of El Valle de Anton in the Coclé Province of Panama. In 1940 Dunn reported the same animals to be found near Cerro Campana, in the Panama province, a range extension of 40 miles. Savage, in 1972, did an extensive systematic work on the Atelopus of Costa Rica and western Panama in which maintaining the Golden Frog as a sub-species within the A. varius complex was suggested. A group of biochemists later isolated unique neurosensitive tetrodotoxins in the Golden Frog: zetekitoxin AB and zetekitoxin C. The presence of these unique tetrodotoxins has been used as evidence for distinguishing one species from another and, in part, has resulted in the elevation of Atelopus zeteki to full species status.

An account on Central American Atelopus that included A. zeteki was completed by Miller, who made some observations and notes on spatial interspersal patterns and provided a non-technical census in a remote population of Golden Frogs. A paper on bioacoustics in Atelopus included audiospectrograms and waveforms of two known call types given by A. zeteki. Lindquist in this last paper considered A. zeteki a different species closely related to the A. varius complex based on differences in call frequency and temporal structure. Lindquist and Hetherington 1996 and 1998 published papers on acoustic and visual communication in this species. In addition to vocalizing, Golden Frogs communicate with semaphores, a hand waving phenomenon that continues to be researched. Knowledge regarding the population status of A. zeteki and its basic natural history, such as breeding behavior and time of breeding, is minimal. Only recently have tadpoles, metamorphic juveniles, and subadults been described in the Golden Frog. Courtship has been observed in this species, an event previously unrecorded in the genus. Finally, a small natural history write-up has described the only observation of a near-predation event by a snake on this species.